Misinformation Frustrates Americans

Misleading information is the number one reason I get angry over politics.  Ideologies differ, I understand that.  I don’t have problems with a emotional debate on an issue.   I think that is healthy.  It’s when the arguments deteriorate from facts into deceptions that really irritates me. 

Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats spinning the facts to fit their arguments.    

President Obama’s June 8^th press conference on the economy was a good example of using deception instead of facts to support his arguments.  Now before you get your tail in a knot and call me an ideologue, please hear me out.  In less that a minute into his speech he made several startling claims.  

First, “...after loosing jobs 25 months in a row, our businesses have created jobs 27 months  

in a row.”  I suppose he said this is to show that the economy has been positive more months than negative.  That may be his opinion but after looking at the data it isn’t true.  

Incidentally, the  numbers I am using comes from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.  I use the number to make my point (boring, I know) because it is hard to refute a reputable source.  I also use charts as a visual representation but because they can be deceptive when used without numbers.  Mine will always accompany the numbers.

Anyway, the total time period (25 months of job losses plus 27 months of job growth) equals more time than President has been in office.  The table below shows the unemployment rate for each month going back through 2002.  Since the President didn’t say when the two periods started or ended, I am making a guess as to when his periods started.  I chose January 2008 and highlighted the period in red.  I’m assuming the twenty seven month period of job growth start February 2010.  

  

			Bureau of Labor Statistics Data
Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2002	9051	8823	8776	8255	7969	8758	8693	8271	7790	7769	8170	8209	8378
2003	9395	9260	9018	8501	8500	9649	9319	8830	8436	8169	8269	7945	8774
2004	9144	8770	8834	7837	7792	8616	8518	7940	7545	7531	7665	7599	8149
2005	8444	8549	7986	7335	7287	7870	7839	7327	7259	6964	7271	6956	7591
2006	7608	7692	7255	6804	6655	7341	7602	7086	6625	6272	6576	6491	7001
2007	7649	7400	6913	6532	6486	7295	7556	7088	6952	6773	6917	7371	7078
2008	8221	7953	8027	7287	8076	8933	9433	9479	9199	9469	10015	10999	8924
2009	13009	13699	13895	13248	13973	15095	15201	14823	14538	14547	14407	14740	14265
2010	16147	15991	15678	14609	14369	14885	15137	14759	14140	13903	14282	13997	14825
2011	14937	14542	14060	13237	13421	14409	14428	14008	13520	13102	12613	12692	13747
2012	13541	13430	12904	11910	12271

This data is in thousands. 

Now before I go any father, you astute reader will notice that this table is unemployment not job loss or creation as the President referred.  Well, it makes sense that if you are talking job loss unemployment increases.  And if you talk job growth unemployment decrease.  Below there is another table on employment but unemployment is the best tracked and therefore the most accurate representation of the work force.  

It may be possible to see using the chart the increase in unemployment (the red months), but it very difficult to determine when the actual decline in unemployment begins - if at all.  To better display the date I created a chart (below) using the numbers from the table to represent my point.  As you can see, there isn’t much change from January 2009 (each bar represent one month) to May 2012.  I couldn’t see anything that would indicate the high unemployment was ending.  

Second, “Job growth in this recovery is stronger than the recovery following the last recession a   

decade ago.” 

Whether the recovery is stronger this time as compared to 2002 - 2004 period is highly subjective so I’ll concede and say the President is untitled to his opinion.  But it is worth noting this because, as I said when I started, statement without fact are deceptions.  And this is a great example of non-factual spin.   

Third,  “...4.3 million new jobs in all have been created.”  The President doesn’t go into much detail here either about those 4.3 million jobs.  Others have suggested these jobs exist only because of accounting gymnastics - such as when contracts are renews, those retained employees are listed as “new” jobs.  But I don’t know that so why speculation.  

The U.S. Department of Labor’s, Bureau of Labor Statistics does track employment so if those jobs exist then they should show up in those figures.   Below is a table I created from data on employment and overall workforce.  The labor market is growing at about a million new people per year.  Which was something I did not know and may be a comfort to all of us if the workforce is growing.  We just need to get them all jobs. 

	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Total U.S. Labor Force	142,345	143,927	144,724	142,972	142,342	143,050
Average  Annual Employment	136,086	137,589	136,790	130,807	129,874	131,359
Unemployed	6,260	6,330	7,933	12,165	12,468	11,690
Unemployment Rate	4.60%	4.60%	5.80%	9.30%	9.60%	8.90%

The President said there were 4.3 million new jobs and 800,000 jobs were created this year (2012).  Subtracting 800,000 jobs from 4.3 million jobs lives us with 3.5 million jobs created from 2008 to 2011.  The average employment in 2008 was 136,790,000. Adding 3.5 million to that figure would be 140,290,000 for the average annual employment in 2011.  Unfortunately, that is not the case.  Instead, employment is only 131,359,000 in 2011 which is 5,4 million fewer jobs than there were in 2008.  Frankly, I am at a loss to find where the President came up with 4.3 million jobs.

Lastly (and this will conclude the first 57 seconds of the Presidents speech) “...Europe is our largest economic trading partner.”  Europe is an entire continent.  I know this may seem petty but when someone makes an unfair comparison to substantiate there point it adds to the confusion.  It also renders the person less credible.  In this case, the President was trying to show that the financial crisis in Europe was responsible for our poor economy here.  I don’t believe that but that was what he was trying to say.  

For the record, our largest trading partner is Canada.  Total trade in 2011 was 596.2 billion, followed by China with 503.3 billion, and third is Mexico with 461.3 billion dollars.  If you group Canada and Mexico to form the “North American Continent” it totals 1.057 trillion dollars.  By comparison the EU (which is what President Obama meant when he included the entire continent) is 636.8 billion dollars.  In fact, if you include all 46 countries of Europe it won’t equal what our NAFTA trading partners produce.   (This information was found at the U.S. Census Bureau.)  

Whether it is the EU or the entire continent, Europe isn’t the reason for our lethargic economy. It’s bad policy, plain and simple.